This interview is part of a series focusing on the history of apples in Boulder County. Two cousins share oral traditions and personal recollections pertaining to a Boulder-area ranch that their family has owned for five generations. Cherry Moore provides historical and genealogical information concerning the migration of the Pruden, Barber, and Ruby families—early Boulder residents—from Iowa and Illinois to Colorado during the second half of the nineteenth century. Cherry also discusses the lives of Jennie and Charles Pruden, the first members of the family to take possession of the ranch. Using information from Jennie Pruden’s diary, Cherry describes the origins of the apple orchard on the property, which Jennie and Charles Pruden planted during the 1890s. She also reconstructs life on the property around the turn of the twentieth century. Charlie Robinson, who spent much of his childhood living on the ranch, shares memories of his mid-twentieth-century upbringing. Charlie explains the processes by which his family produced apple cider and other agricultural products. He also talks about butchering hogs, trapping animals, and fishing in the South Boulder Creek. Both narrators stress the importance of family and community ties. Many of their recollections are of Sunday dinners and other family gatherings.
Topics discussed include: irrigation, Eldorado Canyon, grafting/budding apple trees, honey, apple orchard on the Pruden ranch, Wealthy apples, Moffat Railroad, boarding railroad workers, freighting, making apple cider, haying, slaughtering and processing hogs, head cheese, smoked ham, bartering farm products in Boulder, neighbors helping one another, nineteenth-century homesteading, twentieth-century ranching, Open Space, FBI, ,Navy, Marine Corps, Rocky Flats, Sunday family dinners, holiday gatherings, trapping animals, fishing in South Boulder Creek, family reunions. People discussed include: The Barber family, Jennie Pruden, Charles Pruden, and Ted Moore.